History

In 1996, ICQ became the first Internet-wide instant messaging service, changing the Internet chat, previously dominated by IRC, forever.

AOL acquired Mirabilis, the company behind ICQ, on June 8, 1998 for $407 million and then 12 years later (April 2010) sold it to Digital Sky Technologies of Russia for $187.5 million. Shockingly, in an unprecedented series of events, AOL lost more than half the money it paid more than a decade ago - something that has never happened to the company before! (:sarcasm:)

ICQ has been compatible with the AIM protocol since 2000. It has also been supported by a multitude of multi-network chat clients, such as Pidgin, Digsby, Adium, Meebo, and Trillian for a long time.

However, it's nice to finally see the official app show up, supported by the core developers.